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I owe my encounter with Johann Georg Lickl to an error. In my youth I used to play a magnificent wind cassation that had been wrongly published with an attribution to Mozart. No one then knew that it was a work by one of Mozart’s Viennese friends – one Johann Georg Lickl. Nor did I know that the score of Lickl’s cassation was held in the library of Festetics Castle in Keszthely, on the shores of Lake Balaton in Hungary, where as a music student I used to play in a festival every summer. After the true identity of the composer was discovered, my enthusiasm for this music soon generated a degree of curiosity about the person of Lickl himself, the result of which is this recording.

Lickl was born in Korneuburg, just to the north-west of Vienna, on 11 April 1769. Orphaned at a young age, he was taken under the wing of Sebastian Witzig, the regens chori (director of music) in his home-town, who gave his young charge instruction first in singing and string-playing and then in organ and composition. Lickl soon exhibited both dedication and ability as a composer, and at the age of fourteen he was highly enough regarded to take up an organist’s post, to the considerable satisfaction of his teacher. He was only sixteen when, in 1785, he moved to Vienna, supporting himself by giving private lessons in keyboard, singing and thorough-bass. His musical education continued apace, with advice and support from both Joseph Haydn and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger; Lickl paid especial attention to polyphony and counterpoint. His ability as an organist led to an appointment at the Carmelite Church in Leopoldstadt in central Vienna.

Lickl’s output of music now grew voluminously. He wrote teaching pieces for the keyboard, cantatas and other compositions for the church, string trios and quartets and works for wind ensembles; publishers in Augsburg, Leipzig and Vienna

JOHANN GEORG LICKL, AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN CRAFTSMANby Lajos Lencsés

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took them up. He produced works for the stage, too: no fewer than eleven operas and Singpiele and two melodramas – eight of them produced in the Freihaus-Theater an den Wieden, where from around 1798 Lickl was on the music staff and which was directed for most of its fourteen years of activity by Emanuel Schikaneder, best remembered as the librettist of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. (Unfortunately Lickl’s stage-music seems to have been lost.) But it was Lickl’s church music that gained him most attention, leading to a commission in 1804 to write a Mass for the empress, Maria Theresa, followed by another, this time for Prince Estherházy.

It was in the following year, 1805, that the next major chapter in Lickl’s career began, with his appointment as regens chori in the cathedral of Fünfkirchen, now Pécs in south-western Hungary. He was to remain there for the best part of forty years, until his death, on 12 May 1843, at the age of 74. His output of music during this period was prodigious: a catalogue of his son Karl Georg Lickl1 listed no fewer than 24 Masses, 22 offertories, 36 gradualia, eight Vespers, six litanies, two Requiems, two Salve Reginas, two Regina coelis, four concertante arias and string, wind and keyboard chamber and instrumental pieces. Some of these pieces found publishers; others enjoyed circulation in manuscript copies. And that was his harvest of works only up to 1824, from which point on he wrote exclusively church music, and an extraordinary volume of it, too – he was eventually to compose over 90 Masses. In 1811 Lickl founded the orchestra which became the Pécs Symphony Orchestra and is now the Pannon Philharmonic.2 Lickl was also involved in good works: doubtless mindful of his own origins, he helped establish an institute for the widows and orphans of his Fünfkirchen singers.

1 Lickl’s sons, Karl Georg (1801–77) and Aegidius Karl (1803–64), were themselves musicians and composers. Karl Georg, based in Vienna, developed a reputation as a performer on the physharmonica (a keyboard instrument rather like the harmonium), and wrote and arranged a good deal of music for it. He also composed a number of original piano works, often on popular operatic melodies of the day, of which he also made many arrangements, particularly for two pianos. Aegidius Karl moved to Trieste in the 1830s and became a leading light in musical circles there. An outstanding pianist himself, he wrote a good deal of keyboard music, including educational pieces and operatic arrangements, as well as much music for the church. His opera La disfida di Berletta was well received when produced in Trieste in 1848; and his oratorio Der Triumph des Christenthums was heard in Vienna in 1855. Lickl’s children founded a Sektkeller in Pécs, which his descendants still run.2 Two centuries after its foundation by Lickl the Pannon Philharmonic is now running a project to collect and publish his music.

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Lickl probably wrote his three Oboe Quartets, Op. 26, in Vienna, where the manuscripts are preserved in the Library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. The solo oboe is given by far the most demanding role in these works, with the strings generally relegated to the provision of an accompanying texture. Lickl’s early mastery is clear to hear, as are the many passages which reveal the influence of Haydn, his teacher – and some of the themes and harmonic twists and turns also suggest early Schubert. The soundworld of these works is likewise immediately apparent – a lively one, informed by grace, delicacy and humour.

The C major Quartet opens 1 with a distinguished oboe theme over a rapidly pulsating accompaniment in the strings; the second subject is a delicate theme over string pizzicati, and the first movement makes play with these contrasts. After the delicate central Andante un poco adagio 2 , which presents a lovely dialogue between the oboe and strings, the boisterous Rondo 3 comes as a surprise. The mercurial theme which keeps running out of breath is the kind of humorous idea one finds in Haydn.

In spite of its lively character, the Second Quartet, in G major, is more lyrical than the First. In the opening Allegro assai 4 , which begins with a falling scale, the oboe and strings are given parts of equal importance, lending the movement weight and complexity. An aria-like Adagio 5 then leads to an Allegro bedecked with exciting coloratura passages which finally dissolve into peace. The Quartet ends 6 with an extraordinary dance that was new in the music of its time – a polonaise. This dance has its own rhythm, based on syncopations, and is of the proud character that would later feature so prominently in the music of Chopin. Lickl has some surprises in the strange harmonic turns of the Trio before the polonaise returns and brings the Quartet to its end.

With its simple themes and strange drone-like harmonies, Lickl might well have given the Third of his Op. 26 Quartets the title ‘Pastoral’. Unlike the other Quartets, the Allegro giusto 7 which opens this one lingers in a melancholy D minor. A brief and expressive Adagio 8 with a miniature cadenza is then followed by an Allegretto set of variations 9 , the theme of which recalls the slow movement of Haydn’s ‘Surprise’

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Symphony (No. 94). The variations grow faster and faster until a waltz-like dance brings everything to a close.

Lickl’s exquisite Cassation in E flat major for oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon was published in Vienna in 1795 but was thought to have been lost until 1910, when a copy was discovered in a Hungarian library; in 1936 it was republished by Albert J. Andraud, who ascribed it to Mozart. It would indeed seem to be an elegant homage to Lickl’s friend and idol Mozart and the latter’s E flat major Quintet, k452 – which had served as a model also for Beethoven’s Quintet in E flat major, Op. 16, and so Lickl was in good company. The Cassation begins – as in both Mozart and Beethoven – with a majestic Adagio 10 , followed by an Allegro; here the four wind players present themselves one by one and determine the substance of the music. A horn signal introduces the jocular Menuetto 11 , the Trio of which contains a surprise. At the time ‘Janissary’ music was all the rage (as in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail), and here, in 34 time, the Menuetto tempo sounds as if it has been forced into someone else’s clothes. In the following Adagio 12 the oboe sings a highly expressive cantilena over delicate accompanying textures and is answered by the warm baritone of the horn. Then comes a polacca 13 with its characteristic stamping rhythm which gives way to more peaceful, lyrical music in the Trio. The rondo finale 14 bubbles with inventive life. The buoyant theme repeatedly interrupts the virtuoso statements of the individual instruments, of which the clarinet’s is especially brilliant. This display of fireworks brings to a close a piece which deserves a rightful place in the repertoire of chamber music for winds.

The Trio in E flat major for clarinet, horn and bassoon may belong to the handful of works that Lickl seems to have composed for wind-playing friends in Vienna: as well as the Cassation, two sextets for two clarinets, two horns and two bassoons and a wind quintet (one of the first for the combination of flute, clarinet, oboe, horn and bassoon) seem to have survived. Its three movements – a Moderato 15 , a minuet marked Moderato 16 and a Rondeau 17 – are all easy-going, rolling along good-naturedly, without extremes of dynamic or rhythm. Its affable nature seems to be winning it friends and it is slowly creeping into the international wind repertoire, popping up in concerts all around the world.

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Born in Dorog, in Hungary, in 1943 Lajos Lencsés studied at the Bartók Conservatoire of the Academy of Music in Budapest and at the Paris Conservatoire. Success at the Geneva International Competition in 1968 opened the doors of the world’s concert halls to him. In 1971 he became principal oboe of the Radio Symphonic Orchestra of Stuttgart, providing him with a base for his solo career, which has seen him excel also on the cor anglais and oboe d’amore. His broad repertoire embraces composers as disparate as Bach, Bellini, Britten, Cimarosa, Dittersdorf, Dutilleux, Françaix, Handel, Ibert, d’Indy, Jolivet, Koechlin, Martinů, Mozart, Nielsen, Poulenc, Franz Xaver Richter, Rosetti, Strauss and Vivaldi, and he has naturally championed contemporary Hungarian composers such as Sándor Balassa, Frigyes Hidas and Josef Soproni. He frequently gives master-classes. Over the past three decades he has made more than fifty recordings, many of which have been awarded prizes, for labels which include Bayer, Capriccio, CPO, Hännsler Classic, Hungaroton and Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm. This is his second recording for Toccata Classics; the first featured music by Ferenc Farkas (tocc 0217). He was awarded the Diapason d’Or in France in 1990, on which occasion he was described as ‘one of the great oboists of our time’. The conductors under whom he has worked – in a concert career that spans Europe, the United States and Japan – include Sergiu Celibidache, Karl Münchinger and Sir Neville Marriner. In 2003 the Republic of Hungary honoured him as a Knight of the Order of Merit.

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Natalie Chee is the leader of the Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart. In 1992, in her native Australia, she won the Young Performer of the Year Award, aged only sixteen. Two years later she moved to Berne, to study with Igor Ozim. A year later, she became a member of the Camerata Berne and was promoted to leader of the second violins while still a student. At this time she also founded the Mozart Piano Quartet, an Australian/German ensemble. In 2000 she was appointed leader of Camerata Salzburg, remaining in the post for eight years. In 2009 she became leader of both the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart. After a year, she decided to concentrate solely on the Stuttgart orchestra and remains its leader. She has performed as guest leader with orchestras in the UK, Europe, the USA and Canada. Paul Pesthy received his earliest musical training in Delaware, where he grew up as the son of Hungarian immigrants. At the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia he studied with Jascha Brodsky, Karen Tuttle and Felix Galimir before becoming leader of the chamber orchestra Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia. As the violist of the Lehigh Quartet he gave concerts on the East Cost of the USA and in Canada. Thereafter he moved to Detmold, to study viola in the Musikhochschule with Nobuko Imai, winning a solo position in the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf/Duisburg, where he remained from 1991 until 1995, at which point he took up his current position as Principal Viola of the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart, where he also holds a teaching position for viola and orchestral studies in the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst.

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Ansgar Schneider, a native of Bonn, began cello lessons at the age of eight. He studied with Wolfgang Boettcher in Berlin, receiving the support of the ‘Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes’. In 1977 he qualified for the national ‘Concerts of Young Artists’, and became Wolfgang Boettcher’s assistant at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. In the following years he appeared as soloist and with a variety of chamber ensembles in virtually every European country, in the Middle East, North and South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. He has been Principal Cello of the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra of Stuttgart since 1980.Dirk Altmann, born in 1965 in Hanover, has been Principal Clarinet of the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra since 1985. At seventeen he was accepted by the Herbert von Karajan Foundation and became one of the youngest ever instrumentalists to play Principal Clarinet for the Berlin Philharmonic. He has subsequently been influenced by his work with Herbert von Karajan, Sergiu Celibidache, Carlos Kleiber, George Prêtre and Sir Roger Norrington. His deep interest in contemporary music has resulted in long-standing collaborations with Heinz Hollinger and Peter Eötvös, among others, and as co-founder and artistic director of the NewEars Ensemble, he has been responsible for several first performances. His work is influenced by studies of historically informed performance as well as knowledge of period instruments.

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Wolfgang Wipfler, horn, was born in 1965 in Baden-Baden and studied with Erich Penzel at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. After playing in the European Community Youth Orchestra, in 1986 he was appointed Principal Horn of the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra and in 1988 took up the same position in the Württembergische Staatsorchester in Stuttgart. He has been a member of the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart since 2004. He also plays in the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, the Musikalische Akademie Stuttgart, the Schubert-Kammerensemble and a number of other groups; he appears as a concerto soloist; and he teaches horn at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart and elsewhere.Libor Šíma, bassoon, studied first with his Czech musician father and then at the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart and was still a student when he began to make guest appearances with orchestras as diverse as the Sinfonieorchester des Hessischen Rundfunks, the Israel Philharmonic and the International Bachakademie. At the age of twenty he joined the bassoon section of the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart and became Principal Bassoon in 2001. He has been deeply involved in jazz since childhood and enjoys an international reputation as a saxophonist, composer and arranger.

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Recorded on 24–25 September 2010 in the Kammermusik-Studio, SWR, Stuttgart (Quartets, Op. 26) and on 27 September 2015 in the Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche, Sommerrain, Stuttgart (Cassation, Trio)Producer: Marieanne Weber-Schäfer (Quartets, Op. 26)Recording engineer: Dietmar Wolf, SWR, Stuttgart (Quartets, Op. 26)Producer-engineer: Hendrik Th en-Bergh (Cassation, Trio)

EditionsTh ree Quartets, Op. 26, and Cassation: Rainer Schottstädt, Musikverlag Rainer Schottstädt, Lohmar, Cologne, 2011 and 1996 (www.schottstaedt-music.de)Cassation: Robert Ostmayer Musikedition (http://www.corno.de/shop/Chamber-music/Quartet/wind-quartet/rom349.html)Trio: Hans Steinbeck, Kunzelmann (http://www.kunzelmann.ch/en_euro/trio-116874.html)

Cover painting of Lickl courtesy of the Pannon Philharmonic OrchestraBooklet notes: Lajos Lencsés (translation Martin Anderson)Cover design: David Baker (dmbaker@notneverknow.com)Typesetting: KerryPress, St Albans

Executive producer: Martin Anderson

© Toccata Classics, 2016 ℗ Toccata Classics, 2016Toccata Classics CDs are available in the shops and can also be ordered from our distributors around the world, a list of whom can be found at www.toccataclassics.com. If we have no representation in your country, please contact: Toccata Classics, 16 Dalkeith Court, Vincent Street, London SW1P 4HH, UKTel: +44/0 207 821 5020 E-mail: info@toccataclassics.com

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JOHANN GEORG LICKL Chamber MusicThree Quartets for Oboe and String Trio, Op. 26 (c. 1795)Quartet No. 1 in C major 14:201 I Allegro 6:552 II Andante un poco adagio 2:113 III Rondo. Allegro assai 5:14

Quartet No. 2 in G major 10:514 I Allegro assai 5:015 II Adagio 2:156 III Polonaise 3:35

Quartet No. 3 in F major 14:487 I Allegro giusto 6:318 II Adagio 1:489 III Allegretto 6:39

Cassation in E flat major for oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon (publ. 1795) 24:3610 I Adagio–Allegro 6:3811 II Minuetto–Allegro 4:2412 III Adagio 5:2113 IV Polonese 5:2014 V Finale: Presto 2:53Trio in E flat major for clarinet, horn and bassoon (?1790s) 12:1915 I Moderato 5:0516 II Menuetto: Moderato 3:1017 III Rondeau 4:04 TT 77:07

Lajos Lencsés, oboe 1 – 14

Natalie Chee, violin 1 – 9

Paul Pesthy, viola 1 – 9

Ansgar Schneider, cello 1 – 9

Dirk Altmann, clarinet 10 – 17

Wolfgang Wipfler, horn 10 – 17

Libor Šíma, bassoon 10 – 17

FIRST RECORDINGS